Microsoft tends to focus their top two exclusive titles towards the end of the year and market them heavily, when people have the most expendable income. Sony delivers their top exclusives year round, so the sales will show based on those times mostly. Now that their user base is around the same level as Microsoft's the sales are rising. Microsoft established a core base earlier because it was the more affordable console with more titles. Today the tables are slowly but surely turning. I'm sure because Sony has more exclusives the sales all level out in the end. Also, America is an extremely strong nation for buying shooters.

If we looks at the sales more closely we can see the Xbox is way more popular in the US. even multiplatform games tend to sell a bit better (or a lot better) in the US than PS3 multiplatform games. in Japan, the situation is completely reversed and the Xbox is unpopular by comparasion.

however Japan is a much smaller market, accounting for only about 5-6 mil PS3 users. and the home console market in Japan has been found to be in decay. so while it would seem that Japan keeps things on par with the US, it really dosent, the US sales figures trump PS3's populatity in Japan.

however there is also another reason. a game like Final Fantasy 13 can come out (a popular game in the west and east), and sell 2 mil copies in Japan, 2 mil in the US, and 2 mil in the EU. but a popular game like Uncharted or God of War will sell 2 mil in the US, 1-2 mil in the EU, and next to nothing in Japan. the Japanese arnt buying Sony exclusives, since those games are being made by western developers. so the disadvantage for the PS3 on 2 fronts, both in the US and in Japan.

the reason the 360 is so popular in the US, is simply for reasons that it came out a year before, it was cheaper, it was riding on the success of the FPS genre, it had good marketing, Xbox Live has got a really good rep and Microsoft secured a lot a multiplatform games that were sequels to Sony PS2 exclusives.

however the one region that has saved Sony this gen is Europe. console sales for the PS3 are above those of Microsoft, and the sales of PS3 games here tend to be about the same as 360 games. Uncharted 2 has sold about the same amount of copies as Gears 1 and 2 in Europe. the reason Gears has sold 6 million is because its more popular than Uncharted in the US. and Gran Turismo 5 sold more copies in Europe than Halo 3, Halo 3 came out 3 years ago, and GT5 sold more copies in Europe in about 3 months i think.

Microsoft has less exclusives than Sony that's why the owners of Xbox360 are left with fewer choice.

well since the 360 has a bigger install base in America, and we all know America=the world :p

Well thank you guys.

It's logically a balance of things.

1 - Marketing - Seriously, the amount of money Microsoft puts into marketing is insane, and it shows. Everyone and their aunt knows about Halo in spite of it being a good but not great game, Gears of War is hailed as some sort of messiah where it, too, is a decent but not special game. Sony always said they aren't willing to match Microsoft's marketing budgets, and that they prefer to just make a quality title and allow people to make their own choices.

2 - dispersion - I was doing the math and Sony has a considerable amount more exclusives than Microsoft, and they are equal or higher quality, too. because of this, paired with Microsoft advertising the hell out of Gears and Halo, it ensures the sales are more concentrated. (though PS3 exclusives still sell really well: Uncharted, Resistance, LBP, Motorstorm, MGS 4, God of War, and Gran Turismo are all selling quite well)

3 -Microsoft caters to trends - Let's face it, when you think Xbox, do you think platformers or puzzle games? No, you think manly space marines shooting and cutting their way through alien hoardes. the FPS Genre is 'in' right now when it comes to more 'mature' gamers, and the Xbox excells at that, where the PS3 draws in fans of all genres with ease. It has Racing, FPS, platforming, action/adventure, and RPG fans all backing it, so no one game or genre gets a lot of attention.

4 - America=Xbox - Look at sales, the Xbox is a juggernaut compared to the PS3 in America...which happens to be the biggest gaming community in the world. couple that with america's gun fetish and the Xbox's FPS obsession, and voila! it's just a combo made in heaven.

though many others have said it, I agree: the Xbox doesn't sell more games by a wide margin, but games like Halo and Gears of War sell so damn many that it makes it look like that. the truth is that PS3's sales are more evenly dispersed and therefore appear less impressive. I like to see it as it's more balanced.

No one really knows.

It sounds like you hate every xbox game i'm i right?

Think about what you type before typing it. No, criticising something doesn't mean you hate it; I criticise Call of Duty but love it at the same time.  I criticise Pokemon but love that, too.  

And I have a bigger Xbox 360 collection than any of my friends, and most of them are hardcore Xbots who hate the PS3 for a collection of entirely irrational reasons. No I do not hate Xbox Games, no I do not hate Xbox, but the facts are there, and there's a very logical set of reasons for why the 360 exclusives sell more.  

Saying gears isn't special  is nuts i'm a Gears head